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- NATION, Page 35American NotesMISSISSIPPISecond Look At Murder
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- Civil rights advocates had given up hope that anyone would
- ever be punished for the murder of N.A.A.C.P. field secretary
- Medgar Evers, who was gunned down in Jackson, Miss., in 1963.
- Indicted in the killing was Byron de la Beckwith, a
- segregationist whose fingerprints were found on the murder
- weapon. But all-white juries twice failed to reach a verdict,
- and Beckwith went free.
-
- Recent reports by Jackson's Clarion-Ledger show that the
- Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a now defunct agency
- created by the state to battle desegregation, may have
- interfered in the jury selection for Beckwith's second trial.
- The newspaper found evidence that commission members relayed
- information about prospective jurors to Beckwith's lawyer.
- Assistant District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter is pushing for a
- new indictment, but that will not be easy. Many witnesses have
- died, and the murder weapon is missing.
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